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EXCLUSIVE: Malta's Coffee Game Is About To Explode

Are you a coffee snob who's tired of second-grade cups of what should be the best stuff you consume in your day? Well your prayers are about to be answered in the form of Lot Sixty One – a new cafe that's devoted entirely to top-notch coffee.

Lot Sixty One is a coffee cafe franchise with establishments in New York and London amongst others. Their driving ambition is to serve great tasting coffee that's roasted fresh and locally. And they're making no exceptions with Malta.

The new cafe will be opening on old Theatre Street in Valletta come February, and will be the go-to place for beautiful, freshly roasted coffee made by professional baristas. Clayton Xuereb – the man who has brought the franchise to Malta – spoke to Lovin Malta about how it all came about.

"About four years ago my family opened a coffee shop – Creme Cafe – in Naxxar, which we expanded slowly. I started studying coffee on YouTube and the internet and realised that coffee in other countries was much bigger than in Malta. So I travelled to Milan to look into courses they might offer, and discovered the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe, which is an international company which offers training," Xuereb told us.

"I was the first person from Malta to take the course and then I set up the Speciality Coffee Association Malta Facebook page, which caught the eye of the Lot Sixty One franchise owner – Adam Craig – who was on holiday in Malta."

Clayton Xuereb (left) with Lot Sixty One founder Adam Craig

Craig invited Xuereb to further his coffee studies with him in Amsterdam in one of the Lot Sixty One shops. The Maltese coffee lover completed all his exams and became a certified barista and roaster, and went on to get his Diploma which meant that he could start teaching in Malta.

"Adam could see how inspired I was, and the potential of Malta as a new site. He asked me whether I would be interested in opening up a franchise branch with him in Malta."

And so that's how Lot Sixty One Malta came to be. Xuereb and Craig will be overseeing the professional process of hand-roasting beans on a Probat L12 roaster to deliver world class coffee to Malta.

"We’re getting green beans from Brazil, Columbia and elsewhere to roast in Malta on site. We’ll also be supplying companies, coffee shops and hotels with our blends, and creating new blends constantly. We’re going to be providing lots of variety with beans from many different countries," Xuereb tells us excitedly.

His passion for coffee is contagious, and we're pretty damn sure that this place is going to be a massive hit with people who have waited years for speciality coffee to hit our shores.